آذر مهری

The object marker "râ" has been extensively studied in the realm of Persian speech syntax. It has been posited that this object marker serves various functions, including definiteness marking, specificity marking, topicalization, and discourse management. Given the significance of the object marker "râ" in Persian sentence structure, it has not been thoroughly explored from various semantic theoretical perspectives. As a result, this study addresses this gap by considering different semantic factors and approaches to examine the object marker "râ" in Persian speech.The primary objective of this study is to provide a description and analysis of the factors influencing the presence or absence of "râ" in the Persian language. To achieve this, we hypothesize that the semantic attributes of the direct object, the semantic characteristics of the direct verb, and the extent to which the direct object is affected by the verb are the three principal factors influencing the usage of "râ" in Persian.

Global aphasia due to extensive lesions in cortical, subcortical, and white matter of the left hemisphere is a severe acquired language disorder which disrupts all aspects of aural and written language. In the global aphasia, individual’s interaction and his social community is generally affected and he needs ongoing rehabilitation, especially speech therapy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the common speech therapy methods for global aphasia and dissuss them based on exsiting evidence to introduce the most effective treatment.

An electronic search in Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Medline, SID, Google Scholar, Ovid, and Magiran databases for reviewing the common speech therapy methods was performed to obtain relevant articles published from 1980 to 2020. The keywords used included “Global aphasia”, “Treatment methods”, “Intervention”, “Speech therapy”, “Communication”, and “Therapy”.

Results: 

Among 19 related articles, 9 speech therapy methods have been reviewed to improve communication, expression, and comperhensive language in global aphasia. The results showed that some of them were effective and some were ineffective.

The review suggests that alternative nonverbal, augmentative, and complementary communication methods in the people with global aphasia will produce better results and techniques such as remnant books, the Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT), and SIPARI methods have been more effective than other methods.

One of the therapeutic approaches that improves speech intelligibility is core vocabulary approach. The core vocabulary intervention with the purpose of producing consistent words has been appropriate in functional speech sound disorders and in this disorder, the child articulates the same lexical items as inconsistently in the absence of speech apraxia. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of the core vocabulary approach on speech intelligibility of a child with inconsistent phonological disorder.

The patient was a four-year-old boy who was given birth after a term pregnancy and via vaginal delivery. The parents referred to the Speech Therapy Clinic complaining about the child’s speech unintelligibility.

According to Clinical Problem Solving Model for speech and language pathologist, assessment data were analyzed to address seven case management questions regarding the need for intervention, service delivery, differential diagnosis, intervention goals, and generalization of therapeutic gains, discharge criteria, and evaluation of efficacy. After appropriate assessments, he was diagnosed as having inconsistent phonological disorder from articulation disorder category that required intervention. The present study reports on the clinical observations, inconsistent phonological disorder diagnosis process, the nature and protocol of core vocabulary approach, and the progress of the patient's speech and language over the course of treatment.

According to the results and assessment data, the core vocabulary approach was chosen as the most appropriate and frequent therapy technique in inconsistent phonological disorders. The obtained results, similar to the previous studies, showed that the core vocabulary approach is effective in enhancing the consistent production and other speech and language skills.  To ensure confidence in the effectiveness of core vocabulary approach, further studies are necessary on more sample and in other languages.

The current study investigated the verb retrieval problems in people with non-fluent aphasia. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of ACTION plan on transitive and intransitive verbs retrieval in a Persian language person with non-fluent aphasia. Case report: This case report study, including 4 distinct parts: 1) pre-treatment evaluations (Persian Test of aphasia, Persian test of verb-naming and spontaneous speech). 2) six sessions of baseline 3) four phases of treatment for 12 weeks (First, verb naming, phase two and three, including the completion of the transitive and intransitive taught verbs, phase fourth is construction sentence for two and three phases) 4) post-treatment evaluations (Repeat evaluations before the treatment). The results obtained in this study through C statistics, visual diagram and percent recovery were reported. The results show that except the second stage of the treatment, first and second treatments were different with significance level of (p<0.05), the recovery had effect on untrained intransitive verbs. Recovery was the only after at the third phase for the untrained transitive verbs. In addition sentence construction with untrained verbs with completion and construction of trained transitive and intransitive verbs also significantly improved. The greatest improvement was for the sentence construction assignment through trained and untrained transitive verbs and lowest was for completion sentence by intransitive verbs. It can be concluded that this therapeutic approach for the treatment verb retrieval of Persian language patients with non-fluent aphasia is useful.

In bilingual people, lexical selection, in addition to contending the competition between semantically related lexical representations, competing for word selections also occur between languages, which makes word retrieval a bit difficult. There are two views to explain how bilingual speakers select the correct words for the presented image in the intended language. First one assumes that lexical access in the target language is achieved by an imbalance in the activation levels of the two lexicons, but second view assumes that selection of the target word in the intended language is achieved by means of a lexical selection mechanism sensitive only to the activation of the lexical items of the intended language. Cognate status can influence recalling and retrieval of words from bilingual is lexical system. Cognates are word pairs with similar form and the same meaning in two languages; in contrast, non–cognate words have a common meaning and a different form. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether cognateness affects verbal recalling performance in balanced Kurdish–Persian bilinguals and ultimately to achieve a model or hypothesis that would explain the retrieval of vocabulary in bilingual individuals.

This study was a cross–sectional and comparative study. The population of this study was all Kurdish–Persian bilinguals in Kurdistan province. The participants completed the language experience and proficiency questionnaire. They were also administered the original version of the Persian verbs picture naming test by using DMDX software in two Kurdish and Persian languages, with a 7–day interval. Paired t–test, Pearson and spearman correlations and independent t–test were used to analyze the data.

In comparing the cognate verbs with non–cognate verbs, the speed and accuracy of recalling of cognate verbs was higher than non–cognate verbs in both language. Whereas corresponding comparison of cognate and non–cognate verbs of the first language with cognate and non–cognate verbs of the second language indicate that the second language (Persian language) words in both verb type (cognate and non–cognate) are retrieved more easily. There was a significant difference between the accuracy of recalling the cognate and non–cognate verbs of the first language (p˂0.001) and the accuracy of recalling non–cognate verbs between the first and second languages (p˂0.001). In addition, there was a significant relationship between the level of education and the accuracy of recalling of non–cognate verbs (p=0.002). Comparing the speed and accuracy between male and female groups showed a significant difference between the two groups in accuracy of recalling non–cognate verbs in first (p=0.003) and second languages (p˂0.001).

Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that the cognate status and phonological similarities can effect on word retrieval and picture naming abilities in bilingual individuals. Based on the results “Cascade Activation Model” can explain the word retrieval in bilinguals was well.

The purpose of the research was to assess the content validity and, internal consistency review of pictorial testimonial of verbs expression in Persian language and sever hearing loss children and 4-5 years.
In this cross-sectional study, list of frequency and every day verbs of Persian language were selected. Selected list with their pictures were examined in terms of pictures suitability and frequency of selected verbs in the bachelor panel consists of academic speech therapists of the university. To gain content validity of pictorial testimonial of verbs expression, questionnaire according to the selected list was designed. Then, 14 speech therapists were judged all questionnaire verbs and validity questionnaire was evaluated to employ Lawshe method. Then, 17 (9 girls and 8 boys) children 5, 6 years and sever hearing loss were identified that were matched by entry and exit criteria. After sample selection and test run, children's answers are registered in the form of correct and false answers. And finally, internal consistency calculated to using Cranach's alpha.
To investigate responses of 14 speech therapists, %86.8 of testimonial verbs have content validity greater than %5 as result of 5 from 38 verbs was deleted. %69.69 of items of testimonial have the value of internal consistency (0.3-0.7)
Pictorial testimonial of verbs expression in Persian language and hearing loss children has partly good internal consistency and content validity for assessment verbs expression of hearing loss children.

Brain injury is a brain dysfunction disorder. One of the main problems of patients with brain injury is high level language defect, such as naming. Naming test is essential for assessing language content ability. Since improving the ability of naming can have positive effects on patients’ communication, these aspects of speech and language disorders were decided to be investigated in patients with head injury so as to help Speech-language pathologists to design an appropriate treatment plan.
The present cross-sectional study was conducted on 25 hospitalized patients with mild brain injury (20 males and 5 females). Patients were selected based on the Glasgow coma scale (above 13), according to a neurologist diagnosis. Naming assessment was performed using two tests: confrontational naming and verbal fluency.
Intra-class Correlation Coefficient obtained in the first and the second stages of picture naming was 0.856, which is a high reliability index. Patients were better in semantic fluency than in phonemic fluency. Also, pearson correlation test showed a mild to moderate positive correlation between the average picture naming and verbal fluency (r=0.337, p=0.100).
Since naming skill is one of the language neuropsychology tests and its evaluation is important in executive function, assessment of these problems is essential for intervention planning in traumatic brain injury patients.

There are a few studies reported on the verb fluency task. This task is considered an appropriate criterion for executive function in addition to being a means of measurement for showing loss of deficit and integrity of the anterior subcortical region. Verb fluency has common characteristics with other executive function tests and considers factors that are not diagnosed with traditional tests.
A cross-sectional study was conducted on 60 BSc. and MSc. students (30 males and 30 females). Participants were asked to produce any verb that could be retrieved in one minute. Scoring was based on the number of produced items using an independent t-test.
The results of the present study showed no significant differences between the mean number of verbs and verb type in males and females. Additionally, no statistically significant differences in the total number of verbs and their types were observed between MSc and BSc students.
The use of transitive-intransitive and simple-complex verbs was almost the same in participants, although they had to retrieve certain structures of verb category during verb naming, like sentence completing tasks. Thus, this task can be used in the diagnosis and comparison of neurological disorders, and the results can be used as a basis for future studies.

Background and Hearing improvement tools like cochlear implants and hearing aids have largely helped children with hearing loss in terms of the speech production and comprehension by providing them with auditory input. The aim of this study was to investigate the phonological skills in the six-year-old children with cochlear implants and severe hearing aids and normal hearing children.
This cross-sectional study was conducted in 60 six-year-old children, selected using convenience sampling. The participants were divided into three groups (n= 20 per group): cochlear implant, hearing aid, and normal hearing. The phonological processes were examined using phonological analysis. Kruskal-Wallis test and Dunn's test were used to compare the phonological skills in three groups. Additionally, the Kruskal-Wallis test (followed by the Dunn post-hoc test) was used to compare the phonological skills in these three groups.
Some phonological processes, percentage of consonants correct, and concurrence between single word and connected speech in disorder group were significantly higher than those in normal hearing (P0.05).
Generally, children with hearing loss that use cochlear implants and hearing aids could not completely accomplish all the phonetics. Therefore, they should reverie hearing and speech rehabilitation which helps them avoid further phonological problems.

Epidemiology is one of the Health Sciences issues that is considered as a supplement to the basic sciences and clinical laboratory in speech-language pathology and audiology. Having an understanding of the prevalence of communication disorders, especially speech and language disorders, can help us devise better plans for the patient's rehabilitation programs.
In the present cross-sectional study, 2003 records, from a 10-year period, were studied in the archives of the Speech Therapy Clinic in Tehran Rehabilitation Faculty. All the 851 cases were selected based on systematic sampling and the data was analyzed using SPSS (v. 16).
Important findings include: from among 851 records, 401 patients (%47.1) aged between 1 to 5 years. A total of 343 patients (%40.3) had speech and language delay. Also, 184 patients (6.21%) had articulation and voice disorders and 180 patients (2.21%) were stutterers.
The largest number of referrals to the speech therapy clinics was the delayed speech and language disorders, and the apraxia and PKU had the lowest rates. The ratio of male to female patients was approximately 2 to 1.

Background and The main features of non-fluent aphasia are inadequate production, limited vocabulary and agrammatism. Such patients have deficits in sentence comprehension and production and their speech is short and telegraphic. In this study, morphological and syntactic errors in speech of non-fluent aphasia were compared with those in healthy subjects.
A cross-sectional study was performed in 8 patients with non-fluent aphasia and 8 healthy individuals who were matched for age, sex and educational level. The morphological and syntactic structure of speech in healthy subjects and patients were elicited by two tasks (spontaneous speech and pictures description). Data analysis was conducted using the Mann-Whitney test.
In spontaneous speech and pictures description significant differences were observed between healthy subjects and patients in average number of names (P=0.004). The average number of verbs showed significant difference between the two groups only in spontaneous speech (P=0.022). Also, other morphologic and syntactic elements such as the number of content and grammatical words, intransitive and transitive verbs, active and passive verbs, and mean length of utterance were significantly different between patients and healthy controls in both tasks
The results showed inappropriate use of syntactic and morphological structures in sentences by patients. Total number of grammatical words and content words were considerably lower in patients.

A Concrete and Abstract Word Synonym Test is a test which assessed semantic system in patients with acquired language disorder specifically semantic impairment. The aim of this study is to design a valid and reliable test for assessment of comprehension of concrete and abstract words in different types of aphasia.
The type of study is test construction and was computed as cross-sectional. First, a collection of words based on frequency were chosen in order to construct the test. These words were given to 15 experts (10 speech and language pathologists and 5 linguists) in 3 stages, in order to rate words with 0-100 scale. Then words, which had higher average than 90 score were chosen. After determining face and content validity, the test was performed on subjects. Subjects included 20 aphasic patients (12 men and 8 women) and 50 normal people (28 men and 22 women) ranging in age from 20 to 65 years. After 5 to 7 days, to determine reliability of test, test was performed on subjects again. Results of this study were analyzed by SPSS 16.
Results showed that this test has a higher validity than %90. Coronbach alpha for internal consistency was 0.500. For investigation of test-retest reliability, mean difference of test scores in 2 stages of administration was significance (p A Concrete and Abstract Word Synonym Test is a proper tool for assessing semantic system in aphasic patients and it can indicate semantic impairment in these patients.

Semantic test “pyramids and palm trees” (PPT) are the most common tests for assessing memory. Since this test is related to language and culture, normative data in different populations are needed. This study was done in Persian language.
Current study was cross-sectional and was done in 270 male and female from 20 to 69 years old. After performing Mini-Mental Status Examination test, Persian version of PPT was done. Subjects must select a picture or word between two pictures or words that was closer to target. First picture version was performed and then word version was carried out after 10 to 14 days. Data was analyzed by Spss16 software and the statistic tests were included of T-Test and a Paired T-Test and ANOVA.
The Results show that difference between picture and word scores increased with rising age. There were significant differences in gender between scores of picture and word version (male P Both versions are affected by demographic variables and so the scores should be interpreted accordingly.

Verbs of every sentence have the capability of explaining a situation. Time and essence of that situation is defined by the verb tenses. Turmoil of verb tense inflection appears in most children with speech and language disorder. In Farsi there is no solid research that studies the ability of expressing verb tense inflections on children. The main goal of this survey is to analyze inflection of future, present and past tenses in Farsi, on 3- 5 year old normal children. In this study, 160 Farsi speaking and normal children between the ages 3-5, are chosen from Tehran’s kindergardens. The participants were evaluated with the “expressive pictorial task for verb tense inflections on 3-5 year old Persian (Farsi)-speaking normal children”. This study is an analytical descriptive type. Statistical paired T test is used to compare tenses with each other and The Pearson correlation coefficient is used to calculate correlation coefficient of participant’s score of verb tense inflection and their age. All of the statistical analysis is done with the SPSS version 17. According to the results of this study, the minimum score average belongs to past tense that is 6.96, and the maximum score average is for future tense with a score of 8.37. The lowest score average among all four age groups is43- 48 month olds which is about 22.55 and the highest score average belongs to 55-60 month olds at 23.90. (P<0.05). Comparing the average score of all four age groups shows that they don’t have significant differences with each other, whereas the differences between average score of future, present and past tenses are significant. 3- 5 year old normal children have more capability of expressing future tense inflection compared to the present tense, and their ability to express present tense inflection is more than past tense. Children at the age range of 43-48 months have less capability and Children at the age range of 55-60 months have the most capability in expressing verb tense inflection compared to the rest of the groups. These conclusions approve the U shaped curve forchild development processes.

Bilingual populations are divided with respect to age of acquisition and proficiency on two languages. Verbal fluency tasks are sensitive to semantic abilities in normal development، aging and neurological disorders. So the performance of bilinguals and monolinguals is assessed by verbal fluency in lexical level. This comparative cross-sectional study was done over 30 Persian monolingual and 28 Persian-Kurdish bilingual students by Convenience Sampling. Semantic and letter fluency tasks were used. Subject was asked to name fruit and animal categories in semantic fluency and words that beginning with/f/، /a/، and /s/ letters for letter fluency in one minute. Data were analyzed by using SPSS 16 software. Semantic and letter fluency mean in Kurdish-Persian bilinguals in Kurdish language was significantly different from their Persian language (p˂0. 001). While this mean was not significantly different in Persian language among monolinguals and bilinguals. Monolinguals in Persian language were better than bilinguals in Kurdish language in all verbal fluency tasks (p˂0. 001). No difference was observed on verbal fluency between bilinguals and monolinguals in Persian language. But، there was significant difference in native language between two groups that the Persian individuals were better than Kurdish individuals in their native language.

“Executive function” is a term describing the processes required for conscious control of thought، emotion، and action that have centered role in management of one''s day-to-day life. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between executive function and performance on selected linguistic tasks in persons with aphasia (PWA) and left frontal lobe lesions. Subjects were 12 right-handed، left hemisphere stroke patients and 12 normal adults as control group. Farsi aphasia test were administered to determine of persence and type of aphasia، as well as auditory comperehension (AC) and naming scors. Wisconsin Card Sort Test (WCST) and Tower Of London (TOL) were used to assess the executive function skills of planning، working memory، mental flexibility، self monitoring، inhibition irrelevant behavior، shifting between concept and action. The control group scored higher than the individuals with aphasia on the executive function tests (P<0/001). In WCST there was not a significant correlation between the AC and category completed (CC) as well as preservative errors (PE). There was a significant correlation between the AC and total errors (TE) (p=0/02). There was a significant correlation between naming and CC (p=0/01) and TE (p=0/005). There was not a significant correlation when comparing the naming and PE (p=0/194). A comparison between naming scores and TOL showed a significant correlation (p=0/009). There was not a significant correlation between AC and TOL (p=0/113). This study showed that individuals with aphasia have cognition disorder، other than language disorder. If they have a good naming ability، patients '' performance ontestsof executive function will be better.

The human needs speech for making relationship، he achieves speech with linguistic structure including sound، word and more important than other the sentence. In Persian grammar، there are different types of sentences including: imperative، question، active، passive، exclamation. A childe makes sentence with single-word، telegraphic speech and then with composing names and verbs and propositions in his stage of growing and finally he expresses the passive، conditional، compound sentences. Because of no previous study has been done about the age of comprehension passive sentences in Persian language so we decided to run the comprehension passive sentences on normal children. And we got the age of growth about it in normal children then we compared it in hearing impaired children. The aim of this study was to compare for comprehension passive sentences in normal children 3 to8 years old with hearing impaired children 8years old. A total of 691 normal children 3 to 8 years old in central Tehran and 18 hearing impaired children in special schools participated in this test. At first the test was conducted on 30 children، and proved its reliability. This test had 15sets of three pictures and child must show one of those three pictures. At first، two sets of three pictures were performed to child as example and practice then the passive sentence was expressed about it Colloquial and child must show it and if he/she couldn’t، the examiner showed the correct picture and showed next picture as be offered to children should be familiar with the test. The child was described that he/she looked at pictures carefully and showed the correct picture after reviewing all the pictures. In continue، 15 pictures of this test were executes and examiner recorded the results. The highest number of correct responses were for normal children 8years old (Average: 13. 93) and other records were in order for children 7 years old (Average: 12. 51)، 6 years old (Average: 9. 37)، 5 years old (Average: 8. 09)، 4 yeas old (Average: 5. 31)، 3 years old (Average: 3. 61) and the lowest record of correct responses was for the hearing impaired children. The result of this study showed that there is a significant relationship among the ability of comprehension passive sentences and age، birth order، parents education (p<0. 05) but there is no significant relationship between ability of comprehension passive sentences and their gender (p>0. 05) and there is a significant deference between the average of percentage of responses and comprehension passive sentences in hearing impaired children in all the range of ages except 3 years old (p=1. 000). It means that hearing impaired children in comprehension passive sentences are similar to children 3 years old. The result of this study showed there is a significant relationship among the ability of comprehension passive sentences and age، birth order، parents education but there is no significant relationship between ability of comprehension passive sentences and their gender. The results of this study showed the ability of comprehension passive sentences in hearing impaired children 8 years old is like normal children 3 years old too.

Semantic test «Pyramid and Palm Trees» (PPT) Test was used for assessing cognition and semantic system in brain disorders، semantic dementia، Alzheimer disease and aphasia. This test was designed in 1992 by Howard and Patterson and includes both versions picture and word. It has validity and reliability. The aim of this study is to determine of validity and reliability of Persian picture version «Pyramids and Palm Trees» Test and compare with aphasia and normal adults. In this cross - sectional study، 45 subjects included 15 Aphasia and 30 normal adults respectively the mean age and standard deviation of 53 (7. 77)، 53 (7. 91) years participated. All of participants were matched in the age and sex، and education and bilingualism. In the first stage، the picture version PPT had given to 14 expert (11 Speech and language pathologists، 3 Linguists) in order to determine content and face validity. According to their comments، pictures that were very far from Persian culture were replaced with proportional pictures with Persian culture. Then the reliability was calculated by performance of PPT during an interval of 5-7 days in two stages for all of aphasia patients. In order to compare of results، PPT was performed on normal adults. Then، the results were analyzed by SPSS18 software. The statistic tests were included of lavashh correlation for validity، Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) for reliability and independent T-Test for comparison of scores mean of picture version PPT between aphasia and normal adults. ICC ranges for reliability were 0. 88 – 0. 93. Also difference of scores mean of picture version PPT between aphasia and normal adults were significant (p<0. 05). The Persian version PPT have validity and reliability. This study showed semantic disorder in aphasia patients in compared with normal adults.

In some disorders، word finding is difficult. There is different ways to assess naming process that verbal fluency is one way. So far has not been an index to verbal fluency assessment and treatment، the aim of this study was to determine normative data of semantic fluency for 18-69 -year – old adult Persian speakers.

This study was cross sectional and analytic. Participants were 540 normal adults 18-69 -year – old. They were divided in 4 age groups (18-30، 31-43، 44-56، 57-69) and 3 educational groups (0-8، 9-12، >12). The peoples were asked to name animals and fruits in 60 seconds، words were recorded and analyzed whit Troyer method and SPSS 16 software.

The findings of this study did not show significant differences in semantic verbal fluency، clusters mean and number of switches between two genders. But significant differences were found in semantic verbal fluency (P=0. 000) and number of switching (P=0. 000) between educational groups. Also significant differences were found in semantic verbal fluency (P=0. 014)، clusters (P=0. 000) mean and number of switching (P=0. 000) between age groups.

Semantic verbal fluency and number of switching increase by promoting the education but decrease by rising of participant age. Clusters mean increase by rising of participant but the education had not significant effect. Gender had no effect on none of them. The findings of this study are consistent with other studies and difference in findings in some of studies، could cause of different in educational and age partitions.

Impairment of noun retrieval is common among aphasic patients, but some of previous studies represent differences between noun retrieval ability of various aphasia syndromes. Current study investigates and compares the picture naming ability of 4 patients with fluent and non-fluent aphasia. Present study investigated the naming ability of 2 fluent and 2 non-fluent aphasic patients with oral picture naming test. This test contains line drawing of 109 nouns. Patients were asked to name each picture with a single word. Responses were classified according to Philadelphia Naming Test scoring system as correct and semantic, formal, mixed, non-word, unrelated and others error (no response, description/circumlocution, miscellaneous error). Then, the data were investigated in terms of descriptive statistics and analyzed by Mann-Whitney U test. The score of non-fluent aphasics was more than fluent ones. The percentage of semantic errors in fluent group and no responses among non-fluent patients were more than the other types. Despite of personal differences, all error types were found in responses of patients. The difference between score and error types in fluent and non-fluent patients was not significant (p. 05). This scoring system can define a variety of word retrieval errors. The fluent aphasics have more noun retrieval problems than non-fluent patients. Although, there are differences between two groups, but error type in picture naming is not a precise factor for distinguish between various aphasia syndromes and there is similarity in impaired underling mechanisms and naming behavior of them.

Oral stereognosis is the ability to recognize the objects placed in the mouth; this plays a significant role in speech sounds production. Since the children with hearing loss have articulation disorders, this study aimed to clear the relation of hearing loss degrees and oral stereognosis in 5-year-old children. In this cross-sectional non-invasive study, 40 children of 5-year-old (30 children with different degrees of hearing loss and 10 normal children) were involved. Oral steriognostic test was done for all of them and the Mann-Whitney U was used for statistical analysis. There were significant differences between the mean of oral stereognostic ability between the normal children and the children with severe (p<0.01) or profound hearing loss (p=0.05). There was no significant difference between the mean of oral stereognostic ability among the children with moderate, severe and profound hearing loss compared with together. Besides, there was no significant difference between the mean of the time of diagnosis among all of hearing loss and normal children. The study shows that the children with moderate, severe and profound hearing loss have inefficient oral stereognosis in comparison with the normal children.

One of the common problems in many types of aphasia syndromes is word retrieval and/or production difficulty. So, designing a valid test that can examine this problem based on related processes and influencing factors is important. Picture confrontation naming is a typical method for assessing and treatment of word retrieval impairments. The aim of this study was determining the validity and reliability of oral picture-naming test in assessing word retrieval ability of aphasic adults. Content and face validity of the test, that contains the line drawings of 115 Persian nouns, were assessed by speech therapists, graphists and painters. Then, the test was administered on 10 aphasics and 30 age-, gender- and education-matched normal subjects in two steps. Construct validity and internal consistency of test were investigated. External consistency was analyzed by test-retest method. The content and face validity of all items were more than 90 and 85 percents, respectively. There was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of patients and normal subjects (p<0.001). The internal consistency of 0.98 was determined for the test. The intra-class correlation coefficient of this test was 0.98. The oral picture-naming test had good content, face and construct validity. Also, internal and external consistencies were high. So, this test is a valid instrument for assessing naming ability of aphasic patients by a variety and big set of picture.

Glottic closure pattern is one of the most important stroboscopic signs in judging the normality of laryngeal function. According to the recent researches, complete glottic closure is not the only pattern in normal phonation. The aim of this study was to investigate the glottic closure pattern in normal subjects and to understand the role of sex in having different glottic closure patterns. In a cross-sectional study, 80 subjects (58 females and 22 males; mean age of 21.19 years) were randomly selected from a population of 218 students. After taking a full medical history and performing perceptual and voice self assessment, subjects without any vocal disorders were recruited. Videolaryngoscopic assessment was performed during producing the vowel sound /i/ in habitual, high, low, loud and soft levels of phonation. Glottic closure patterns were analyzed in different phonation and also were compared between males and females. Although complete closure was the most frequent pattern, Y posterior chink was the second pattern in males (20.2%) and females (39.4%) in all phonation. The results revealed significant difference between males and females in glottic closure pattern (p=0.001). Moreover, significant differences were observed in habitual (p=0.004), high (p=0.006) and soft (p=0.02) phonations between males and females; however, the differences in low (p=0.7) and loud (p=0.19) phonations between males and females were not significant. Y posterior chink, as well as complete closure, are likely to be normal findings in people with normal voice. Besides, gender has a significant influence on glottic closure pattern.

Agrammatism is a phenomenon of neuropsychological relevance which has been recently investigated from conceptual and empirical aspects. The present study focuses on grammatical deficit in agrammatic aphasia. We evaluated the impairment of correct use of tenses of Persian verbs in agrammatic Broca's aphasia. Eight patients (mean age 57 years) participated in this descriptive - analytic study. They were classified as agrammatic Broca's aphasia according to the Persian aphasia test, their CT Scan and MRI reports and other inclusion criteria. All patients but one were monolingual native speakers of Persian (Farsi). The other individual was bilingual whose dominant language was Persian. All subjects had a left unilateral brain lesion for at least one year after the onset of brain damage. The written sentence completion and picture sentence completion tests were designed and performed. Results do not indicate significant difference between Past Tenses of verb; however, comparison of means showed best scores in Simple Past, Past Continuous, Present Perfect and Past Perfect, respectively. A main result of this study was significant difference between the mean of responses to Past Tense in comparison with Present Tense and Future (p=0.02). Use of tense is impaired in agrammatic Broca's aphasia in Persian. Our findings point out that use of Past Tense is impaired significantly more than the other tenses of verb